SLB Speakers @ AAI 2018 announced

SLB is pleased to host yet another guest symposium. In 2018, SLB will host a session at the AAI 2018 meeting in Austin, TX. Below are the featured speakers that have been selected from applications from the membership. Another example of the many opportunities that SLB membership offers!

Dr. David Verhoeven is a Research Assistant Professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University. He completed his PhD at UC Davis in Comparative Pathology with an emphasis in HIV in 2007. He followed this with a postdoctoral research at the University of Maryland focused on CD4 T cell memory responses during influenza infections. The Verhoeven lab is currently focused on pediatric immunology (both innate and adaptive), immunometabolism, comparative immunology using large and small animal models of respiratory pathogens, and respiratory viral/bacterial vaccines.

Dr. Wendy Liu is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California Irvine. After earning her B.S. degree in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT in 2000, Dr. Liu attended the Johns Hopkins University, where she obtained her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 2007 as a National Science Fellow. Her doctoral work was completed in the laboratory of Dr. Christopher Chen. Following her Ph.D., she completed postdoctoral positions at Arsenal Medical Inc., a biomedical start-up company developing cardiovascular devices, and at MIT, where she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Langer. Dr. Liu’s work has been recognized by a number of awards including the 2012 National Institutes of Health New Innovator Award, the 2013 BMES-CMBE Rising Star Award, and the 2014 UCI HSSoE Junior Faculty Research Award. Dr. Liu’s current research uses bioengineering approaches to understand how physical microenvironmental cues regulate immune cell function, with a focus on macrophages. The long term goal of this work is to develop new biomaterials-based strategies to control immune-mediated wound healing.Dr. Ty Troutman obtained his PhD at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center under the supervision of Dr. Chandrashekhar Pasare. These efforts led to the identification of a novel TLR/IL1R signaling adapter participating in the pathogenesis of both colitis and multiple sclerosis. He then pursued postdoctoral studies with Dr. Christopher K. Glass at the University of California, San Diego. Here, Dr. Troutman has focused on hepatic macrophage responses during non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. An overarching goal for these studies is to identify roles for genetic variation in governing Kupffer cell environmental responses.Throughout his career, Dr. Mark Headley has focused on better understanding the pulmonary immune environment and how it shapes disease onset. Mark Headley received both a Bachelors and a Master’s degree in Biology at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho working under Dr. Denise Wingett. He went on to receive a PhD in Immunology working under Dr. Steven Ziegler at the University of Washington. During this time, Dr. Headley made seminal contributions to the underlying biology of how the pulmonary epithelium educates the immune system during both asthma and viral infection, via the cytokine TSLP. Following his PhD, Dr. Headley sought to apply his knowledge of the pulmonary immune environment to the poorly understood process of lung metastasis. In the laboratory of Dr. Matthew Krummel at UCSF, Dr. Headley helped pioneer a novel method for imaging pulmonary metastasis in real-time in live mice. Through this work he defined an important relationship between incoming metastatic tumor cells and the myeloid immune system of the lung. Dr. Headley has worked closely with the myeloid-focused Immuno-oncology startup Pionyr Immunotherapeutics helping to develop new classes of myeloid-focused immunotherapeutics. Starting in March 2018, Dr. Headley will be leading his own lab at the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. The primary focus of his group will continue to be understanding the interplay between myeloid cells and metastatic tumor cells during the critical early moments of metastasis.